CFP: Appropriating Vision(s): Visual Practices in American Women's Writing

Society for the Study of American Women Writers (SSAWW), 3rd
International Conference, Philadelphia, PA. Nov. 8-11, 2006.

According to Michel Foucault, a systemic shift in the visual
organization of power and knowledge marks the onset of modernity and
turns Western nations from 'societies of the spectacle' into 'societies
of surveillance.' This paradigmatic change, located by Foucault at the
turn of the nineteenth century, is accompanied by new discoveries about
the human body, new visual technologies, and new conceptions about the
human capacity to see and the possibilities of an observer. How does
this paradigm shift bear on women's situation in American society? Does
woman's heightened 'visibility' in Victorian culture lead to a special
interest in the implications of scopic relations? How do female writers
react to changing concepts of vision and the visual practices of their
time? We invite papers that explore any aspect of the relations between
visual practices or visual culture(s) and issues of knowledge,
discipline, and power in American women's writing from the late
eighteenth century onward. We are especially interested in papers that
focus on the power implications of visual practices with regard to
gender, race, and class.

Please e-mail 300-500 word proposals and contact information to Birgit
Spengler at b.spengler_at_em.uni-frankfurt.de by January 29, 2006.

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Received on Tue Jan 10 2006 - 10:12:11 EST